


Are we running home or running free today?

by feyrelay



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe, Character Study, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Don't copy to another site, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Moodboards, Pseudo-Incest, Уточнять у автора
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 05:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18404228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: MCU characters as the Umbrella Academy, in honor of Gerard Way's birthday! A drabble collection originally posted to Pillowfort, with accompanying playlists and moodboards.CNTW because these are so short and so passing, I didn't want to scare anyone away from what is really just character study.***I have never, will never, allow any reposting or translations of my works without my permission. All of my works will and shall only be hosted on my personal accounts on AO3 (feyrelay), Pillowfort (feyrelay).I no longer have a Tumblr.I do not have a Twitter account.I do not have a Wattpad account.Please Do Not Repost My Fics ANYWHERE, including but not limited to Goodreads, Ficbook.net, or Fanfics.me. If you would like to translate a work of mine or host a translation you may contact me to ASK about that, at feyrelayfiction@gmail.com. Уточнять у автора.





	Are we running home or running free today?

**Author's Note:**

> Each character has their own playlist, made by me, and their own moodboard, made by [monobuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monobuu/pseuds/monobuu). Click their names for links to the posts with that info!

[Steve](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/569289) understands proportions. Equity. Size.

It’s what made him a good artist. He had a natural eye for it, a natural eye for sizing up how things should be, how things should fit together, how to make it all come out fair and even and symmetrical in the wash.

It’s also, he thinks, what made him a so-so leader and an awkward romantic. Teams aren't really about things being fair and even; they're about people's strengths being utilized and weaknesses being covered. You pick up the slack, even if you picked it up last time (and the time before) because it needs picked up. Not because the original owner of said slack ‘deserves’ it.

And when it came to Nat, God, he’d loved her since they were children together, in the purest and best way possible. He’d thought it was because she was an angel, perfect and terrible like an Old Testament seraph, red hair streaming behind her like St. Brigid herself and able to bend grown men to her word with a whisper (a rumor). He’d held that image of her in his mind for years, gilded in glory, an icon that was larger than life, like their shared Father.

He knows, now, the pain of feeling so much bigger than the ones you love, so outsized and out of place.

He tells Nat he’s sorry, for that.

\---

[Clint](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/570579) hadn't meant to upset Laura. He’d known the Peter kid, the server at the donut shop, was her witness, and that it was her scene, and her case, and that he couldn't protect her all the time. He'd known that he's no detective, dammit. He'd known. 

But there's a difference between knowing and feeling. 

He knows Mom - or Friday as his siblings have taken to calling her - isn't real. But she  _ feels _ real. 

He knows not to stress when he stutters or his hearing aids crackle with feedback. It doesn't stop Clint from feeling that moment of panic, that whatever the last thing he said or last thing he heard will really, well, be the  _ last _ thing. 

He knows he never had a shot at the police academy, not once they did a background check and found out what other academy he'd attended ( _ ut malum pluvia _ ). But he'd felt - allowed himself to feel - that maybe he and Laura could hold on despite that.

He knows that the protectiveness he feels over her echoes uncomfortably close to the way he'd used to worry over Wanda, when they were younger. He knows Wanda herself had fretted mostly over her violin and Bucky - before he'd gone and zapped himself to the future. That little fact and the jealousy it'd inspired hadn't stopped Clint from feeling like she'd felt some kind of resonance with  _ him _ , she the second-loved daughter and he the second-loved son. 

He knows both the women he's loved are out of his reach, probably forever. But it feels like he could still get them back.

He knows you're not supposed to be able to curve knives or arrows once they've left your hand. 

(And yet.)

\---

[Natasha](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/573519), when she'd been younger, had thought she wasn't the maternal type. She’d gotten through the horrors of their childhood by being impish and gleefully ordering criminals to neutralize themselves, and it had seeded in her a twisted tree that flowered with tiny blossoms of avarice, which had no leaves (no pity) to provide shade or respite, and which adamantly bore no fruit.

When she pictured this ungiving tree in her mind, though, it had a sort of distant beauty. For a long time, that had been enough. (Or maybe that was a lie.)

And then, Lana. Brock had wanted to name her Claire, but Nat had heard a rumor that her child had a good, Russian name. Svetlana and Claire had the same meaning anyway, and she’d settled for Lana, in her guilt, as a sort of compromise.

She’d sworn never to use her gift where her child was concerned, never again.

(But that was a lie, too.)

And, God, maybe she’d had a thought in the back of her mind, even then. Maybe she’d wanted to name her girl in Russian, so that she could speak to her in Russian, in the language Natasha herself had studied so laboriously and so secretly at night under her covers, desperate to connect the words to her native English tongue and give her gnarled, poisoned tree some goddamned roots. 

And, you see, her gift only works in English, only filters strong enough psychic energy when she rumors using her native tongue, and if she only ever talked to Sveta-

Whoops, she means Lana-

If she only ever talked to her little angel, her little light, in Russian, then her baby would be safe.

But then, in desperation, she’d said without thinking, “I heard a rumor that you were so sleepy.”

And how could she wake her up?

Lana didn’t know the English words for ‘wake up’, not yet. Natasha always sang her a little song in Russian to wake her up, every morning. Nat could rumor all day long and never break through the language barrier to wake her sleeping beauty, no matter how pure and true was her mother's love. More red, red roses bloom in her ledger.

It takes enough adrenaline to damage the girl’s tiny kidneys to undo what Nat has done.

(But that’s a lie.)

It can never be undone.

\---

[Tony](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/574427) has four brothers in 1991.  It's easy to remember that he's number four, because it's the same. He does his best to remember their names: Steeb, Cint, Buckeee, and Brooz.

Tony has three brothers in 2004. Steve, Clint, and his Bruce-y baby.

Tony has two brothers in 2019. Steve and Clint.

Tony has one brother in 1968.

He figures if Steve and Clint can dream seamless, watertight dreams of their so-called sisters (when, in reality, they'd all been adopted and raised as little more than soldiers), then he can call Rhodey ‘brother’, despite the stolen kisses. Brothers-in-arms. In each other’s arms. As if his whole life hasn't been pseudo-something.

When he gets back to 2019, the ghost of Bruce seems to agree, quite readily.

Tony wonders why.

(Why not?)

\---

[Bucky](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/577017) doesn’t give a shit about saving the world. He’s seen what the world is like after it has ended itself, and honestly? It wasn’t all bad.

He doesn’t  _ need _ the world, not after having lived half a lifetime with naught but its cremains.

He does, however, give a shit about his family. And his family needs the world to be a certain way.

(Not on fire, for one thing.)

Steve, for whose bright moon Bucky calls himself the dark side. He needs the world to be just. Bucky will make it so.

Clint needs the world to be safe, and he’s spent his life so far trying his best to make that happen. Bucky will help, now that he’s back.

And Natasha, who’d loved him for who he was, instead of who everyone thought he was supposed to be... she needs the world to do the same for her, now more than ever. She needs the world to be kind for her and her daughter. Bucky can try, at least.

He doesn’t know what Tony needs, and he reasons that Tony probably doesn’t either. Bucky won’t leave him behind, though. Bruce, in turn, will follow wherever Tony does. At least they will all be together.

And Wanda, she’s the one Bucky loves best of all. Without her, he wouldn’t have had his roadmap to their lives. He wouldn’t have known how Bruce died. She needs the world to acknowledge her contributions, he thinks.

The Winter Soldier will make it so.

\---

Once, [Bruce](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/579396) and Tony had had a literal pissing contest off the roof, to see if either of them could hit the building across the alley. Tony had won, which he claimed was because he was older, despite them both being born on the exact same day and at the exact same time, like all the siblings.

Bruce had asked him what the point of this was, to distract his thirteen-year-old self from sneaking a peek at his brother's junk. "When you gotta go, you gotta go," Tony had said.

Twice, Tony had been to juvenile rehab and actually made it longer than six months. It had seemed like he was actually trying, to Bruce, and Bruce couldn't wait for Tony to get back and for them to keep working on getting the Horror out of him. If anyone could figure out how to close the portal in his chest that led to a realm of interdimensional monsters, it was his big brother, Tony.

Steve hadn't liked that talk. He'd said, "Do you want to be like Wanda? You'd be useless when danger comes. Don't make me tell Dad."

Tony had come back from rehab to find Bruce resigned to his fate and unwilling to work on the portal anymore, and had promptly punched Steve in the face and been made to go back, despite not having popped a single pill.

"When you gotta go, you gotta go," Tony had screamed from the back of the police car; Clint's girlfriend had hastily reached back and rolled up the window.

A year later and after a long struggle with himself, Bruce, after researching at the library, tried to kill his guilt by asphyxiation, the Rolls pumping exhaust into the garage until Natasha showed up for a surprise visit to see Steve and had told him a rumor that he'd "never try that again". Those had been her exact words.

He had to get creative. He'd gone to visit the abandoned house Tony and his 'friends' were living in, laying next to him with their heads on an old crib mattress and their legs like speedbumps for roving rats. He'd come to see if Tony might be able to talk him out of it -- one last cry for help -- but Tony  _ couldn't _ recognize him; if he had, there's no way he would have kissed him like that.

But, as if in payment, Tony had offered him a pill or two, rattling a large bottle full of rainbows, and Bruce, he'd...

He'd grabbed the whole thing and ran all the way home to, to, to. To feed the Horror.

When you gotta go, you gotta go.

\---

When [Wanda](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/581776) was very young, she'd insisted on writing her name with two capital Vs instead of a capital W. It looked the same, but she liked V better. Like ‘violin’. 

(Like victory, like violence.)

Clint liked it, too, because Steve didn't and because, as he said, “You wrote it like my stutter!”

She'd said, “I love your stutter, Clint!” although that wasn't quite true. But she loved to love him more than she loved things to sound right, so she said it anyway. 

And Steve couldn't say anything because Natasha rumored everyone's ear off about Bucky being Bucky and not… What had been his name before? Friday named him for a President but Bucky said it was a failed one and he didn't want his name anymore. Wanda can't remember what it was, before. 

There are a lot of before things she can't remember. (Like victory, like violence.)

But Nat had been kind to her a lot lately, and protected her from Steve, and let her borrow her red jacket, and call herself VVanda and told her to remember that there was something special about being a sister and not a brother. 

Tony was jealous, had said he wouldn't mind being a sister himself, had walked around in Friday's high heels just to make her and Bruce laugh, and then VVanda tried it and hurt her ankle and Clint rubbed it and kissed her cheek and Bucky fetched her things by jumping back and forth so many times that half the kitchen was in her room. 

Wanda loved her family so much, and they loved her so much back. 

At least, she thinks so. 

There are a lot of before things she can't remember. 

She ought to start vvriting things down. 

 


End file.
